


From Lemons

by openhearts



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 23:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4156203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Babe?"</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"Why do I smell burning?"</p><p> </p><p>For LiveJournal's Pic For 1000 Year Ate challenge with a prompt picture of a bowl of lemons.  Unebeta'd, gifted to Jenn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Lemons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crackers4jenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackers4jenn/gifts).



"Babe?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Why do I smell burning?"  
  
"I'm just - JIMINY CRICKETS! - making breakfast!"  
  
He props himself up and searches for some sort of clothing.  Boxers are closest so he pulls them on and trudges towards the smell, careful not to disturb his bedhead.  He's made that mistake before, and he can never replicate it later.  
  
He leans in the doorway to his tiny kitchen and observes her standing at the counter with her back to him, working in a suspiciously animated fashion on something he can't see.  
  
She's wearing his shirt from last night - the one she herself had tossed on his bedroom floor much to his dismay . . . until she commenced with  _distracting_  him rather creatively - and it appears nothing else.  He might need to put the kibosh on this "breakfast" thing and take her back to bed forthwith.  
  
"Ann," he begins gently, and she jumps a foot in the air and lands facing him (what is she, half ninja cat?) with her hand springing frantically to her chest.  
  
"Don't DO THAT!" she gasps.  "I'm working with HEAT, here, Jeff."  
  
"Yes, I can smell that," he sighs as he squeezes past her to the refrigerator.  
  
"What are you looking for?  I said I was making breakfast," she asks darkly.  She bunches up one cuff of his shirt until she can find her hand, then rolls it back up above her elbow.  
  
Jeff winces and snatches her hands away, straightening out the sleeve before beginning to re-roll it neatly.  
  
"Annie.  We've talked about this.  Fold, never scrunch.  You're going to bankrupt me with dry-cleaning bills, and then I will have no will to live and no nice shirts to be buried in."  
  
She tilts her face up to him and smiles sweetly.  "You just pretend that bothers you."  
  
"No, it actually does bother me.  This is Armani; threads this fly ain't cheap, boo."  
  
Annie grabs his face and drags him down for a kiss.  She pulls back and looks at him hopefully.  
  
"Still bothered, cuff hater.”  
  
Before Annie can reply, the toaster croaks out two charcoal-gray rectangles. Her face falls and her eyes begin to bug out in an expression that's familiar  _and_  terrifying.  
  
"Your STUPID toaster-" she begins, voice sliding up the octave from normal to heart-wrenching with an alarming quickness, but he cuts her off.  
  
"Stop.  Stop now.  No mas.  Were those the last two Pop Tarts?"  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"Then you," he untwines her arms from around his waist, "find something to drink that is orange juice," he kisses her forehead, "and I will . . . "make" more Pop Tarts.”  
  
She glares at him as she slips by toward the fridge, but he gives her a smack on the ass and she jumps and squeals like she does every time.  He grins lasciviously like he does every time.  
  
He discreetly drops the ashen Pop Tarts in the trash and peers into the depths of his toaster to make sure everything's in working order.  Not that he'd really be able to tell if it wasn’t, but it’s manlier to pretend and there  _is_  a hot, semi-clothed woman present.  
  
"Did I break it?" she asks as she sets the orange juice on the counter.  
  
"Yeah, the flux capacitor's all kinds a' fucked."  
  
Annie rolls her eyes and leans around him to get two glasses from the cabinet behind him.  
  
" _Speaking_  of the Spanish mid-term," she begins, "what'd you put for number twenty three?"  
  
Jeff closes his eyes and bangs his head against the cabinet door.  
  
"Nooooooooooooo," he whines.  "It’s Saaaaaturdaaaaaaay.  School doesn't  _exist_  on Saturdays.  Have I taught you _nothing_?"  
  
Annie pretends she didn't hear him.  "I picked 'a,' because if it was 'b,' the question would be in a different tense from the answer, so . . ."  
  
She looks up and finds Jeff making a cross with his index fingers with his eyes closed and his face turned away.  
  
"Jeff," she starts in the tone of voice reserved for when she's trying to guilt him into acting like a human.  
  
Jeff mysteriously produces a handful of Roasted Garlic Triscuits and tosses them at her.  
  
Annie stands still with her eyes closed against the rain of whole grain crumbs.  She wants to be mad.  It would be so satisfying to just be  _mad_  at Jeff and gather up the pieces of clothing and stray textbooks that have made their way to his place over the last six months, but . . . she opens her eyes.  
  
Jeff tries to stifle a laugh behind his hand.  He inches forward and brushes a few crumbs out of her hair before moving closer and cupping her face in his hands.  
  
"You know you don't hate me."  
  
She makes a face at him and sighs, "Yeah, yeah."  
  
He smiles – the smile for when they're alone and he's reminding her that not only does she not hate him, but he's also crazy in love with her.  
  
"Yeah, yeah," he parrots back, and releases her.  
  
Jeff drops two Pop Tarts in the toaster and pushes the lever down while Annie hoists herself up on the counter and continues to mull over the test they took the previous day. He notes the expression that always means she's knee-deep in a self-imposed mental tailspin. She bites her lip and Jeff thinks he might be the luckiest asshole on the planet.  
  
The Pop Tarts burst perkily from the toaster, smelling of delicious artificial fruit and preservatives.  
  
They stand in his kitchen eating Pop Tarts and drinking orange juice on a Saturday morning, wondering together what Pierce could possibly have meant by "hung like a Belgian."  
  
Jeff takes another look at Annie (sometimes he wonders just how much time he’s actually spent just  _looking_  at her.  He never gets tired of it.) and decides that while he'd been handed a freakin' bushel of lemons when he had his license revoked . . . things were turning out kind of great.


End file.
